Could she, by any chance, be going to die?
He did not dare to go into the sick woman's chamber now, and he asked
that Cachelin, who was watching by her side, be called.
His father-in-law appeared immediately, opening the door with
precaution. He had on his dressing-gown and skullcap, as on the pleasant
evenings which he passed in the corner by the fire; and he murmured in a
low voice: "It's very bad, very bad. She has been unconscious since four
o'clock. She even received the viaticum this afternoon."
Then Lesable felt a weakness descending into his legs, and he sat down.
"Where is my wife?"
"She is at the bedside."
"What is it the doctor says? Tell me exactly."
"He says it is a stroke. She may come out of it, but she may also die
to-night."
"Do you need me? If not, I would rather not go in. It would be very
painful to me to see her in this state."
"No, go to your own apartment. If there is anything new I will call you
at once."
Lesable went to his own quarters. The apartment seemed to him
changed--it was larger, clearer. But, as he could not keep still, he went
out onto the balcony.
They were then in the last days of July, and the great sun, on the point
of disappearing behind the two towers of the Trocadéro, rained fire on the
immense conglomeration of roofs.
The sky, a brilliant shining red at the horizon, took on, higher up,
tints of pale gold, then of yellow, then of green--a delicate green
flecked with light; then it became blue—a pure and fresh blue overhead.
The swallows passed like flashes, scarcely visible, painting against the
vermilion sky the curved and flying profile of their wings. And above the
infinite number of houses, above the far-off country, floated a
rose-tinted cloud, a vapour of fire toward which ascended, as in an
apotheosis, the points of the church-steeples and all the slender
pinnacles of the monuments. The Arc de Triomphe appeared enormous and
black against the conflagration on the horizon, and the dome of the
Invalides seemed another sun fallen from the firmament upon the roof
of a building.
Lesable held with his two hands to the iron railing, drinking in the
air as one drinks of wine, feeling a desire to leap, to cry out, to make
violent gestures, so completely was he given over to a profound and
triumphant joy. Life seemed to him radiant, the future full of richness!
What would he do? And he began to dream.
A noise behind him made him tremble. It was his wife. Her eyes were
red, her cheeks slightly swollen: she looked tired. She bent down her
forehead for him to kiss; then she said: "We are going to dine with papa
so that we may be near her. The nurse will not leave her while we are
eating."
He followed her into the next apartment.
Cachelin was already at table awaiting his daughter and his son-in-law.
A cold chicken, a potato salad, and a compote of strawberries were on the
buffet, and the soup was smoking in the plates.
They sat down at table. Cachelin said: "These are days that I wouldn't
like to see often. They are not gay." He said this with a tone of
indifference and a sort of satisfaction in his face. He set himself to
eat with the appetite of a hungry man, finding the chicken excellent and
the potato salad most refreshing.
But Lesable felt his stomach oppressed and his mind ill at ease. He
hardly ate at all, keeping his ear strained toward the next room, which
was as still as though no one was within it. Nor was Cora hungry, but
silent and tearful she wiped her eyes from time to time with the corner of
her napkin. Cachelin asked: "What did the chief say?" and Lesable gave the
details, which his father-in-law insisted on having to the last
particular, making him repeat everything as though he had been absent
from the ministry for a year.
"It must have made a sensation there when it became known that she was
sick." And he began to dream of his glorious re-entry when she should
be dead, at the head of all the other clerks. He said, however, as though
in reply to a secret remorse: "It is not that I desire any evil to the
dear woman. God knows I would have her preserved for many years yet, but
it will have that effect all the same. Father Savon will even forget the
Commune on account of it."
They were commencing to eat their strawberries, when the door of the
sick-room opened. The commotion among the diners was such that with a
common impulse all three of them sprang to their feet, terrified. The
little nurse appeared, still preserving her calm, stupid manner, and said
tranquilly:
"She has stopped breathing."
Cachelin, throwing his napkin among the dishes, sprang forward like a
madman; Cora followed him, her heart beating; but Lesable remained
standing near the door, spying from a distance the white spot of the bed,
scarcely visible by the light of the dying day. He saw the back of his
father-in-law as he stooped over the couch, examining but disturbing
nothing; and suddenly he heard his voice, which seemed to him to come
from afar--from very far off--the other end of the world, one of those
voices which pass through our dreams and which tell us astonishing things.
Cachelin said: "It is all over. She is dead." He saw his wife fall upon
her knees and bury her face in the bedclothes, sobbing. Then he decided to
go in, and, as Cachelin straightened himself up, the young man saw on the
whiteness of the pillow the face of Aunt Charlotte, so hollow, so rigid,
so pale, that with its closed eyes it looked like the face of waxen
figure.